Polk CSI a6 center channel quiet dialogue problem

clusion

Hey Guys,

I am new here, and splurged this Christmas on an all new Polk setup. Big upgrade from a $500 home theater in a box! I got Polk RTI A9's floorstanding speakers, CSi a6 center, RTI a3 bookshelfs, and an onkyo 818 receiver.

Anyways, I am having this issue which is absolutely driving me crazy. The audio coming out of my center channel speaker sounds very nasal, muffled, and quiet in most processing modes. This happens on Blu Ray movies and sattelite inputs(i am currently running HDMI but have tried optical to see if it would make a difference it didn't). This also happens while watching TV. About 50% of the shows I watch on TV have this issue. Any movies on TV wherein Dolby digital is utilized about half the time its just nasally and to damn quiet. If i use all-channels stereo with no processing the center shines and sounds amazing. Commercials the center sounds amazing. 50% of the channels on sattelite the center sound fine. All of my blu ray movies it sounds nasaly/muffled.

I ran audyssey to let it calibrate a few times and this has not improved it much. I currently have my floor-standing set to large and they are crossed at 40hz, my center is crossed at 150hz. My center is about 7 feeet away from where I am sitting (smaller room). The auddsey has set my floorstanding speakers at -4, -5 db, and my center to +5.5db. I have bumped it up to +12db just to be able to hear dialogue although it sounds hollow on most movies. The center is ear level about 3" from the back wall. I am going to try moving it farther from the wall and re running auddsey.

Anyways I am looking for suggestions. I have maybe 30 hours of playing time so far on my center, but honestly can't enjoy blu ray movies. I have played with Dynamic EQ to help different db settings dolby volume, played with all settings on my sattelite out, and blu ray player. I assume this has to be a problem with either the center, or the receiver. I am getting close to the 30 day ownership mark on my components and everything was purchased on amazon so if i need to try swapping something out i need to make a decision quickly. BTW I love home audio, am a little inexperienced but am reading and and learning. Thanks for any help/comments.

-Neil

rpf65

I would probably re-check the center connections before anything else. I would also suggest changing the A9's to small, and resetting cross over to 80 Hz. They are taking up a lot of power right now.

gfong

good info above, I would also hook the center speaker up to one of your left or right front speakers and see how it sounds. Of course dont crank it up to nose bleed level but you should be able to judge if it is speaker or settings or connections! Switch to stereo mode while watching tv so that the voices come out of the left/right channels when you do swap the center to try it.
As rpf65 mentioned, check connections first!

teekay0007

Why do you have your center crossed at 150 Hz? That's an awesome center and from most that I know who own it have it crossed at 60-80 Hz.

PolkieMan

Welcome!
Yea I got an A6 also, teekay0007 is right, this is a full range speaker, but like gfong said check it out on like the left channel in pure audio mode *i have an 808*. You know that the drivers are all working? Take an empty paper towel roll and listen to each one this is especially a good way to check the tweeter.

teekay0007 wrote: »

Why do you have your center crossed at 150 Hz? That's an awesome center and from most that I know who own it have it crossed at 60-80 Hz.

clusion

It works!!! YAY!!! Night and day difference. After playing it around and wiring it to the left and watching the speaker i noticed I was getting audio from the tweeter but none of the woofers on the center were moving. I played around with the gold post and all of a sudden the woofers came to life and the center evened out. It appears to be that little gold connector between the four binding posts wasen't making a clean connection. I dont know if that makes sense or not but a little tightening tweaking with the post and the center has come to live. Can't wait to re-run audyssey when the house quites down and watch a blu ray! Thanks everyone for the help time to enjoy this great stereo!!

-Neil

teekay0007

clusion wrote: »

It works!!! YAY!!! Night and day difference. After playing it around and wiring it to the left and watching the speaker i noticed I was getting audio from the tweeter but none of the woofers on the center were moving. I played around with the gold post and all of a sudden the woofers came to life and the center evened out. It appears to be that little gold connector between the four binding posts wasen't making a clean connection. I dont know if that makes sense or not but a little tightening tweaking with the post and the center has come to live. Can't wait to re-run audyssey when the house quites down and watch a blu ray! Thanks everyone for the help time to enjoy this great stereo!!

-Neil

Neil, now what you want to do is get rid of those gold connectors. They're garbage. Replace them with good, heavy guage speaker cable jumpers. The cable jumpers will give you a much better electrical connection.

cowtrimmer

Does anyone make any aftermarket jumpers ? Or maybe Polk would sell the ones they use on the LSiM series.

tommyt21

cowtrimmer wrote: »

Does anyone make any aftermarket jumpers ? Or maybe Polk would sell the ones they use on the LSiM series.

Just use a short piece of speaker wire

math wizard

Ditto above. You can easily and cheaply make your own.

DRoemelt

So I'm in the middle of moving - twice actually.

All the wiring / unwiring lead me to consider changes to my system config - and potentially address the 'muddled voice issues' I've periodically experienced with my CSi A6's.

So I discovered this thread - and after reading through it - began to wonder if my receiver is insufficient to handle -

2 x RTi A9
1 x Csi A6
4 x RC 65i - as surrounds

I'm using a Pioneer Elite VSX-50 - which is rated at 550 watts ( 90 x 7 ) per prioneers website - which is odd because 90 x 7 = 630

I would welcome anyones suggestions on just how much wattage I need. As part of my research I jump over to a major jungle retailers website and was read just how power hungry these speakers are. . .

Not to bore anyone, but i was even considering 'a not x but z' v o x to handle surround stuff (video content) during this first move, and wiring up the A9's for exclusively audio - but clearly, long term, I'd just like to maximize the performance of the system.

This 'zvox-box' does a great job at speaking clarity - if i can get my A9's and A6 to perform at their best, i sure would be a happier camper

chumlie

You need more power up front. That vsx-50 is not enough to drive all those speakers. Your going to need a better receiver with pre-outs to hook up a high current amp to drive the A9's.

F1nut

chumlie wrote: »

You need more power up front. That vsx-50 is not enough to drive all those speakers. Your going to need a better receiver with pre-outs to hook up a high current amp to drive the A9's.

Agreed. There isn't an AVR made that can drive the A9's properly. Furthermore, your current AVR isn't putting out anywhere near 90 wpc when driving 7 channels. The Pioneer Elite SC series do a much better job at putting out their rated wpc with all channels driven, but even those will not drive the A9's properly.

markdeloura

Thank you all for the comments on this scenario - was very similar to my configuration, and pulling the default plate on my A6 to put a speaker cable jumper across the posts solved the problem.

wickmanjw

I just got a Polk Audio center speaker and I'm using a Onkyo TX NR686 7.2 Channel AV Network Receiver, with 165 W/Ch per Channel, when I hooked it up and run a sound test on it, when it gets to the center speaker, my receiver shuts down... Don't know what's going on

wickmanjw

It's Polk Audio A6